The Lady Says No

Ever wonder how those Julia Roberts or Meg Ryan films will look in years to come? LIke this empty headed flick. I'm not even sure what it was about!

Niven was a photographer, Joan Caufield was some independent female who had to challenge him about a woman's independence. Huh? A photograph of her crossing her eyes and pulling a lock of her hair across her upper lip like a moustache was supposed to be embarrassing and he put it on the cover of a magazine. Really odd movie and such a waste of David Niven. I have seen him salvage other movies. Alas, this one he could not. The film was a showboat for Caufield, and she couldn't be more uninteresting if she tried.

One very amusing moment was Niven having a dream about Caufield and she is dressed like Sheena of the Jungle in a leopard print one piece swimsuit. Very bohemian! Think of Madonna of '52. The wooden gyrations are laughable to begin with, but just before this scene, we're shown an unamed African American woman who was the towel girl (!) at the restaurant and her dancing to the band's music was priceless. This chick really cut loose! I thought it was tremendously odd that this woman was uncredited and danced so much more better than Caufield, and that her scene would precede Caufield's big dance moment. Avoid this flick at all costs, unless you are an overwhelming David Niven fan, as I am. This was not one of his best.

The team that wrote the classic wartime comedy classic "The More the Marrier" made this innocuous but entertaining early spoof of feminism, starring an offbeat couple: Joan Caulfied and David Niven. It's stood the test of time.

Joan has written the title book, which argues for women to stand up for themselves in a male-dominated society. She's thrown together with a self-assured Life magazine photographer played by Niven, whose innate charm makes his chauvinistic attitudes tolerable, with zero doubt that they will move past detente to become a loving couple by film's end.

Adding quite a bit to the movie's impact is the subsidiary storyline involving Joan's aunt Frances Bavier and her estranged Scots husband James Robertson Justice, a real chauvinist pig. Casting that team seems unlikely, but this pair of opposites are delightful in their bickering, with Justice's comedy flair (staring in many a British comedy of the Fifties) on display.

I've been watching David Niven demonstrating his acting versatility a few years later on "Four Star Playhouse", and his nimble comedy reactions help lift "The Lady Says No". Kudos also to the great James Wong Howe's distinctive camerawork. Watch for some strange little touches by director Frank Ross, including a goofy dream sequence and a "jump and jive" Black girl dancing around in a hallway.

You're going to need some serious suspension of disbelief to watch this one. I mean, who would say "no" to David Niven?

Joan Caufield plays a best-selling authoress, whose claim to fame is a book that warns unsuspecting women about the greatest horror known as Man. Men are filthy, nasty beasts, and women would do well to always say "no"! David Niven works for a popular magazine, and he's assigned to do a featurette on Joan. He hates her book and her message, and as soon as they meet, they're at each other's throats-and not in a good way. But, since it is David Niven, she just might be charmed long enough to listen to what he has to say.

Yes, it's pretty silly, and enormously dated, but if you like silly and dated, you won't go wrong by renting The Lady Says No on a rainy afternoon. David Niven is absolutely adorable and charming, and since I love him anyway, it's easy to root for him in this funny 50s romp. My advice: watch the opening credits. If you start laughing during the song, you're in the right mindset to enjoy the rest of the movie. I find it hilarious.

Slight romcom set in around 1950s Carmel, California, where suave bachelor globe-trotting photographer David Niven is assigned to shoot a best-selling feminist author, who turns out to be the virginal, cool and very smartly turned out blonde Joan Caulfield.

At his first tired ploy of getting her to remove more and more clothes, she ends the shoot by walking out. Each further advance on his part is met by more rebuffs, following which she allures him into yet more humiliation. Even her dreams show attraction competing with repulsion. Restless, she starts interfering in the romances and marriages of his blue-collar friends as well. It has to end, as we know it will, with her growing up. The little girl who keeps saying no must become a woman and learn to say yes.

Good support from, among others, James Robertson Justice as her errant Irish uncle, Henry Jones as an amazingly unwarlike army sergeant and Lenore Lonergan as his battleaxe wife.

There were two things at least I enjoyed about this frivolous romantic comedy about the author of a book attacking men and her involvement with the type of man she despises most, the jaunty and catchy intro music, and the performance from the stunning Joan Caulfield, who managed to extract the maximum from an inconsistent and under-written part. A pity she didn't become a greater star than she did. By contrast her co-star David Niven appeared understandably rather uncomfortable throughout. The first half was fairly amusing, albeit dated, with the dream sequence the highlight, but the attempts at humour become increasingly feeble and finally moribund some time before the inevitable conclusion is reached.